The Stars Stand Up in the Air: The 58th Hunger Games
by jacob1106
Summary: "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live in peace with all people." When does it no longer depend on me? SYOT see profile for details.
1. It's Time

**I do not own the Hunger Games**

**and welcome to my first syot, I look forward to writing this and seeing what types of tributes I can herd in! **

* * *

"It's time to begin isn't it?"

Zion Tzorin

"Did I stutter?" I hate interns and this is why, I make simple requests and half wits ruin everything. Don't I have enough going on as it is? My arena isn't quite complete and frankly this intellectual novice isn't going to make it through the evening.

I told her two sugars and three creams. This shit only has 1 sugar and it's completely void of cream.

Damn.

The ignorant woman with a name I didn't care to remember whimpers something but I completely disregard her. It's disgusting, the way her bottom lip trembles at the sight of me. In this business you have to learn plain and simple, you obey your orders no matter how ridiculous they seem. Being candid, coffee at 4 in the morning isn't even close to some of the things I had to do in order to climb the ranks and land the position I have now.

I lift my wrist watch and press the communicator button "Hey Caelreth I need you to take care of the newest intern, if you could. She messed up my coffee" I pause a moment and hear a fuzzy confirmation from the device. "This is why you're my favorite!" and just like that I turn the communicator off and shift my focus again.

Hastily I my butt finds my chair and I spin around towards my computer screen. My masterboard shows the status of all the mutts and their development, how much longer I have to wait until the weather machines are active, the percentage of cameras that are operational, as well as countless other things. Aside from my lack of tasteful coffee everything is going as planned.

"Mr. Tzorin, what end have you decided for intern Spinner, sir?" Caelreth professionally asks me. He places his hands behind his back and squares his shoulders. He's a tall man at least 6' 4'' with tasteful blue hair pulled back tight in a ponytail. Aside from the delightful color of his hair you wouldn't be able to tell he was from the Capital. Irregardless, he does his work in a timely and efficient manner.

"Who the hell is Spinner?" I wrack my brain trying desperately to remember who the hell that is. I gingerly swivel my chair and give everyone a status check. If I had a guess I'd assume Spinner is the girl standing in the corner fighting tears. Her red ears and scrunched up chin are dead giveaways.

My blue haired friend gestures to the girl I was previously looking at with his strong muscle bound arms. "She's the newest intern, the one who you called me in to exterminate, sir" His arm snaps back behind his back with military like precision. "What type of punishment should I administer to her, sir?"

"Hmmm, what'd she do exactly?" I honestly don't think I've ever seen this women in my entire life. I have more important things to worry about, like my arena. She's wasting my time with her existence. Part of me is frustrated just because she exists, but alas the crime needs to fit the punishment.

"According to your transmission she failed to acquire the proper type of coffee for your enjoyment, sir." I'm completely taken aback. This bitch messed up my coffee? I can see why someone called Caelreth in to kill her.

In a level voice I speak "Decapitation."

* * *

"I get a little bit bigger but then I'll admit  
I'm just the same as I was."

Caelreth Arrowind

"Yes, sir. Anything for you." I give the head gamemaker a perfect 60 degree bow, exactly as I was taught to do then place my right toe behind my left foot and spin 180 degrees, a standard about face. Directly in front of me is a clearly terrified ginger. I wonder what's going through her mind right now? Certainly she knows she's going to die, a thought so basic isn't fit for an intellectual.

I stroll over to her taking exactly 22 and a half inch steps. It's a perfect 8 steps to every 5 yards, that's how I was trained and that's how I'll always walk. Repetition is my nature. As my shined shoes fall on the floor her breathing increases and her faces gets even more panicked, a feat I didn't think was possible except in the arena.

She's completely stunned as my iron grip clenches her arms and tug her. My face stings red as her slender hand swings as fast as lightning and smacks my right cheek. Oh joy, I love a good struggle.

Since she has technically assaulted the head peacekeeper to the head gamemaker I have legal scope to literally do anything I see fit to defend myself, after all everyone in this room knows I will end them if they touch me.

My hand is still wrapped around her arm and I strongly throw her to the ground, she hits hard with a huff of air fleeing from her lungs. I refuse to give her a respite and bring back my right leg and kick her as hard as I can in the kidney. She doubles over in pain pretending to be an armadillo and exposing her back to me. Again I bring foot back and smash it into the center of her spinal column.

All the while she screams bloody murder. She must know there isn't anyone in earshot who'd be bold enough to want to help her. In fact everyone in the room is staring with wide excited eyes. We're all in a slump with the lack of violence lately. Sure, the games are in a few days but we're certainly in a deficit of old fashion pain and power. With a grin I kick her once more.

"Get up now." I look across the room and see the voice belongs to Mr. Tzorin. He stands up from his giant rotating chair and in a relaxed canter approaches Spinner and I. "You pathetic swine, how dare you attack your superiors." he looks down at the crumpled bruised form of his intern, Zion might not remember what happened 5 minutes ago, but he certain has a deep understanding of what hierarchy is and where he is within said hierarchy.

What happens next I almost don't quite catch, one moment we're all suspended in animation staring at each other waiting for someone to make a move, the next Zion is on the ground and a small blade sticks out of her back. Her voice is at a pitch so high my ears are ringing violently, clearly his blade wasn't meant to kill just inflict even more pain.

"Caelreth you can continue your work." as he acknowledges me I heft the girl over my shoulder and she falls nearly completely lax. Her breath is shallow and her hands try to claw at me to no avail. After another precise turn towards the exit I nod to Zion as I take my first step.

The door opens right before I press the button as none other than President Snow steps through with his strong, young, body squared up to mine. His snake eyes dart directly passed me and my captive to Zion casually kneeling by a pool of blood.

"This better not affect your progress with everything Zion." his voice is stern.

"Don't worry President Snow, the 58th Hunger Games will be the best yet."

"Now don't you understand?  
That I'm never changing who I am"

* * *

**lyrics are from It's Time by Imagine Dragons**

**first and foremost I'd like to thank my good friend Mack/Burning Stars for encouraging me to do this and giving me the little push over the edge I needed, this is in fact a SYOT in case you couldn't tell I am currently accepting tributes and will until I have 24 that I'm pleased with go to my profile for details and the character requirements, if you have any questions please feel free to message me, I love to chat with people and take criticism very well **

**there will be another intro chapter and then I'll begin with the reapings! **


	2. To Begin

**I do not own the Hunger Games**

* * *

"So this is where you fell  
And I am left to sell"

Zion Tzorin

I watch the president leave as awkwardly as he came in. In all honesty I figured someone like him would be sleeping at such an hour, clearly I was mistaken. He is both my biggest fear and my biggest advocate. When the position of head gamemaker went up for grabs last year I wasn't the first choice, in fact I was around 6th or 7th choice. After the frontrunner for the position mysteriously disappeared everyone else who could have possibly gotten the job over me dropped out in a few days. I was unanimously voted in by the higher up politicians.

Once the doors close behind Snow I walk up to Caelreth and place a hand on his shoulder that a wounded women isn't draped over. "Damn my friend! I couldn't imagine what this one did! Knife in the back is a little cliche, but effective none the less, why'd you do it?" she looks like she might have been pretty. Her arms are long and slender with an intricate line tattoo that curves around them and her bright orange hair falls over her face in a fiery waterfall. A lovely contradiction.

"Mr Tzorin, please do yourself, and everyone else a favor, and take your meds, I'm pretty sure you're far overdue for your next dosing, sir." Caelreth makes eye contact with me for a few moments and my mind goes blank for a minute as his words echo in the empty, silent, room. In the silence I find myself enticed into staring at his eyes. He has one orange eye brighter than any neon light in the dance parlors and a blue one as natural as the skies in the fields of District 11. It's not normal, it's quite abnormal actually. He must've gotten surgery on them, or he's wearing a contact. Hopefully that contact is comfortable, I wouldn't want him to be uncomfortable, he should be at ease. He's my bodyguard, he's at my whim, he's essentially my slave.

Everyone is a slave to someone.

I focus my mind and the blur encroaching on my vision is repelled from the corners of my eyes. I crack my neck to each side and remember what my duties are, it's about time that I do what I'm supposed to "Thank you Mr. Arrowind. You're dismissed please take care of this mindless swine." I give him a dismissive wave and go back and plant my ass on my head gamemaker chair. My fingers wrap around the cup of now lukewarm black coffee. Without a second thought of sugar or cream I tilt my head back and down the entire cup. The bitter liquid might not taste how I'd like it to, but if Caelreth is telling me to get my act together then clearly I'm doing something wrong. Dismissively I throw the empty cup to the side and spin my chair so I'm overlooking my domain.

It's a beautiful sight, I actually forced them to repaint the room to my favorite shade a slate blue, it's dull enough to remind everyone that this isn't a place of frivolity but still light enough to make them think that they have an enjoyable job. This ignorant slobs have but one job and that is to obey me and assist in the organization of death I have planned. Around my room I give quick glances to the remaining people working this late. The tanned twins modifying the plant populations and manipulations via my request, a fat man working on mutt designs blown up on the central holocron, and a short women with hair standing on end sketching something that better be vital to my arena. My slaves. My domain. My arena. I press my thumb to the identification scanner on my third drawer and I slide it open to see all my private paraphernalia.

A plethora of hand sized objects fill my drawer: small jar of cyanide, a wicked looking knife with an expensive gem encrusted handle, a shit ton of private files on the dirty secrets of everyone who's ever worked for me, a list of all the surviving victors, a few illegal drugs that aren't actually illegal because I do what I want. And there it is. Without hesitation I grab my syringe.

Gently I flick the liquid chamber and and watch as the silvery cerulean colored ooze mixes until the whole thing is one glistening shade of aquamarine. I take my hand and smack the inside of my elbow a few times to coax the vein into rising just a little bit to assist my cause. I sigh, looking at the drug. I don't particularly like what it does to me, but the president does and as of right now, with reapings within the week, I don't have a choice. Everyone's a slave to someone. Me included.

I take one last moment to think clear happy thoughts. Despite my memory issues I still have beautiful thoughts floating around in my mind. A gentle breeze wafting through fields of lively clover, the whistle of a teapot coming alive to a delightful boil, or a pair of soft lips gracing my forehead sending shockwaves of heat pumping through my veins. But, alas those are all things of the past. Things that, I'm no longer allowed to appreciate.

Slowly, with a melancholy mood, I press the cold thin needle into my basilic vein. The chilling cylindrical probe feels at home setting up camp in my arm. It no longer phases me like it used to before the president ordered me to take regular doses. It's a complete invasion of my closest and most private piece of equipment; my body. Oh well. If Caelreth is calling me out on it then I need to comply with order, stupid social constructs are going to be the death of me.

Oh god. The death of me. I fear how true those words, because they're so accurate.

With the idea of death staring me in the eye I crack my thumb and lower it on the plunger until my digit can't go down any farther. I know that my blood is being diluted because I can literally feel the heat drain from my arms as the sludge pulses through my heart and to all parts of my body. I touch the tips of my fingers together and I'm not even a little surprised when I can't tell that they're touching. Completely numb. That's how I'm wanted to function. Whatever.

I shake these thoughts from my head and begin bracing for the eminent transition. Or as I've called it 'the glossing over'. "God dammit!" I can't help myself from screaming as details of situations I never knew happened penetrate my mind. Near infinite amounts of data pertaining to my arena. Interviews of the family's of potential tributes. So many plans that I've either thought up or that've been planted in my mind.

Then I feel nothing but cold.

* * *

"The path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell  
Right to the top"

Perpetua Jovenes

"God dammit!" I look up from my work as Zion screams his ass off. No one likes when he has to take his drugs at an irregular time because it makes him that much more intolerable. We all love the happy go lucky, absent minded, though still vicious Zion without the medication. That was the Zion we all came to know and love in the past 3 Hunger Games. Working with him and my twin Pablo was like a dream came true. We were widely accepted as the best agricultural unit the Hunger Games have ever seen. I mean really, we killed 3 of the careers in our first year because of the hybrid self pollinating mangrove flowers festooned around the area. Tell you what though, the careers that year were dense as all hell. I'm glad that girl from 8 won she was clever.

Irregardless, those were the days. Zion used to laugh so hard when people would trip at the bloodbath and get trampled on or last year when the boy from 5 fell off a huge orange bluff because he sneezed, and then he landed on and killed his district partner! It was so hysterical! Only during the Hunger Games can you get entertainment that high quality. I have to stifle my laughter since I feel at this time it's inappropriate.

In the last Hunger Games the career pack was nearly completely wiped out by an earthquake, only the boy from 4 was left alive. But by then it was the top 5 and the pair from 7 hunted him down and despite his amazing trident work he could only kill the boy. So then there wasn't a career in the top 3. The girl from 6 spent the whole time hiding, the girl from 7 had only killed the boy from 4, and the boy from 9 who slit his district partner's throat on the first night was slowly losing it. No one in the Capital, gamemakers included, was happy with this final three.

So when the boy from 9 found the girl from 7 he chased her down until she tripped dropping her weapon in the process. Now since she was weaponless he took his time scalping her, which is one of those things people only enjoy watching after a good fight or when it's from a pack. Not a 10 second kill from a crazy ass kid. The designated finale was supposed to be the release of a pack of coyotes, the last Head Gamemaker Kyrie thought it was still an ok idea despite the lack of genuine fighters in the arena. Snow sent her a direct message to let the game play out. But it had already been 25 days and people wanted this to be over. So she released the coyotes in search of both the boy from 9 and the girl from 6. We acted quickly and inserted a series of bushes blocking where the girl was hiding and once they found the boy from 9 they ripped him to shreds. The newest victor, Katarina Blake, won without killing anyone just by hiding in a small cave, piling rocks on the opening, and receiving our protection. No one was pleased with Kyrie and because of the intense pressure coming towards her after the games she killed herself. Part of me refused to believe that she of all people could do that to herself, but everyone has their limits I suppose.

So with Kyrie's death and the job up for grabs a crap ton of names got thrown around and we collectively agreed that Tomas Hendall should be the next Head Gamemaker. Except, when he was on a forced vacation he randomly disappeared. For his break he decided to take a tour of the districts, then was abducted and killed as a political statement. Very tragic to say the least but after that nearly everyone vying for the spot of Head Gamemaker bailed out of the running, which was a far worse problem than someone dying. Zion soared to the top and was elected with presidential approval! We were so excited for him! There had never been a promotion from the agricultural unit to Head Gamemaker.

Then everything changed when he started on his drug regimen. He still maintains he cruel underlying animosity. But he's not so 'light and fluffy' anymore. Nothing makes him happy. He's so cold. There are days when gems of who he used to be come out. Especially around my brother and I.

The reason I'm still here tonight is because we had one of those few and far between, but beautiful interactions. About 5 hours ago when Pablo and I finished our shift Zion came up to us almost in tears laughing. Of course I asked him what was going on. He pulled out his portable holocron and showed us a video of two years ago. I remember the circumstances, a brilliant 18 year old from district 3 was casually walking through the frozen tundra and sought shelter underneath a grove of pines. He stays awake for 3 days straight and almost frozen to death due to his lack of fire and dwindling food supply. We were given specific orders to kill him in a flamboyant way. The video was of his death.

The boy's head was bobbing up and down until he finally falls over and knocks his head on the frozen ground. He jumps up in a crazed panic swinging a 6 inch knife around like he could do any real damage with it. He already looks like an ignoramus. I can distinctly recall Zion jumping out of his seat yelling that now was the time to make our move. We see the boy still in a worthless frenzie, his adrenaline on the verge of falling. They both looked at me with eyes wide with a child like innocence I just couldn't resist -those damn boys know how to get what they want, who was I to say no?

On the video we all watch as the tree roots come up from the ground and grab onto his ankles, he notices and falls to his knees trying to slice the brown tendrils wrapping around him. Then just a few seconds later the branches droop down and make their own ironclad constrictions around his wrists. The boy drops the knife in favor of his teeth and attempts to gnaw through whatever his mouth can reach. On the holocron yet another branch comes and gags the boy rendering him completely incapable of movement. Slowly the trees stretch his limbs farther and farther apart. His left arm pops out of it's socket and we all lose our shit. Nothing is funnier than dislocated limbs! I mean really you can practically see the gap between the shoulder socket and the bones in his arm! Once all four limbs are popped out the boy's voice is comply raw, to the extent when he can make nothing other than awkward wheezing noises. The sounds of cheers from my fellow gamemakers accompany the memory. A tall strong conifer that's been sitting right behind him in the background slowly cracks as it falls right on his head and bisects him perfect down the middle. Each of his dislocated limbs still hanging in air where the branches held them and a bloody stump of a torso underneath the bark.

We were all laughing so hard rewatching our handiwork.

What the cameras don't show, even on the rerun we watched is how it was all being controlled by us. The plants were linked to old fashioned joystick controllers. The roots were under my control and the upper branches my brother's. It was like we were school kids again playing on our first holocron, messing with this poor tribute. Not even I was expecting the tree to fall down on him, that was all Zion's work. Pure genius. The three of us shared a hearty laugh when it happened, and we were heralded with the award for best kill of that Hunger Games. When rewatching it together we laughed just as wholly like the original day.

How could we resist our old friend after reliving that moment when he asked us to work late? We couldn't.

These are the memories that pain me, but watching him scream now as he bridges back to his drug induced state scares me as well. I'm scared because of the evil terrible things we did to tributes when we thought it was funny. We laughed about those gruesome deaths. Pablo laughed. Zion laughed. I laughed. We're to blame for killing three careers in the 55th. We're responsible for ripping a boy to shreds in the 56th. We're the ones who chose the victor of the 57th. We all did that.

My fear is, what can Zion do now that it's not funny? Now that he's alone? Now that the president is literally feeding him medicine. That's something to fear.

"Don't look back  
Turning to rags and giving the commodities a rain-check"

* * *

**lyrics are from It's Time by Imagine Dragons**

**so I hope you're liking the intro so far! there will be one more intro chapter after this, I am currently sitting at 7 tributes which means I need more! aaaahhhh! everyone is allowed to submit more than 1 tribute should they please, once I have 24 then I'll post the link to the blog I've been working on and get on with the reapings! districts have been updated on my profile so you can see what spots are taken already and what not, again if you have questions please feel free to contact me :) **

**I'll see you guys in another week with one last gamemaker and everyone you've met before and (if I have 24 tributes) after that reapings begin! **

**huzzah! **


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